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Mabel's perspective in Sock Opera is equally, if not more sympathetic than Dipper's: An Essay

Most people generally wouldn't consider Mabel to have a terribly sympathetic plotline in Sock Opera, even those of us who don't necessarily feel that she's horribly selfish. I think that's because, from a narrative perspective, her plotline is (as it so often is) shafted in favour of Dipper's, and from a viewer's perspective, Dipper's makes more sense. We, as viewers want to know who the author is. We, as viewers, know that Gabe is inevitably going to turn out to be some variety of impossible, and we know that the Author of the Journals is a major mystery. However, from Mabel's perspective, none of this is true, because she doesn't have the luxury of knowing she is in a TV show. Even if you take out Gabe, her perspective still makes perfect sense.

At the beginning of summer, Dipper found this journal, and Mabel has generally been pretty happy to go along with his adventures as the journal has led them, but it's clear she doesn't have the same degree of fascination with it. Maybe she may have been a little intrigued by who the Author is, she's probably a bit curious, but not to the same extent. By the time of Sock Opera, she's probably reasonably ready for the Journal fixation to be over, considering that they nearly all got killed by a shapeshifter trying to find the author. She knows that trying to investigate the author is dangerous--Stan warned them away from the supernatural, they've all nearly died multiple times, but Dipper cannot be stopped. And now Dipper has decided to spend hours and hours and hours, forgoing sleep, sitting in front of a screen, typing in passwords. The fact that Mabel tries to drag him away from it is a good thing--anyone with a relative who spends excessive amounts of time in front of a computer can tell you that. Generally, having someone close to you become deeply fixated to the point of obsession with anything can be challenging, however in Mabel's case, Dipper has become obsessed to the point of prioritising getting into the laptop above anything, and this isn't just a regular hyperfixation: this is a hyperfixation that has nearly gotten them both (plus their loved ones) nearly killed multiple times in the last few weeks. It's absolutely the responsible, good thing for Mabel to do to not enable that behaviour.

And then if you add the puppet show back into the equation, then yes, it is kind of ridiculous of Mabel to put on a whole show of that kind of magnitude just for a boy (regardless of whether the boy deserves it), however, as viewers we must accept that this is, in fact, thoroughly within character for Mabel, who is kind of ridiculous. Any kind of production of that size is a huge commitment, especially if you've given yourself a week to work, and I'm not remotely bothered by the fact that Mabel has to get everyone involved on this. And to Mabel's credit, she does try to help Dipper as soon as he appears to her in puppet form, she just isn't immediately willing to stop the show. Back in high school, my drama class did a play that I mostly wrote, mostly managed and also had a small acting role in (yes, I was an overachiever in drama), and let me tell you, it would have taken a lot to have gotten me to call off the show halfway through, much less publicly sabotage it. A demon threatening the lives of one of my siblings? Probably yes. That probably would have done it. And Mabel does allow the thing that she poured blood, sweat and tears into to go literally up in flames in front of everyone, once she realises that's what she has to do (and personally, I don't think that there's anything wrong with not immediately being willing to drop everything for this. It's not like Dipper doesn't dig in his heels about doing what's best until the very last possible second). I don't know why people insist it's not 'technically a sacrifice', because while, yes, obviously Dipper's life was more important, and she 100% made the right choice, it's not easy to wreck something you worked hard on in front of people.

All this is to say that although it's easy to become irritated at Mabel during this episode because she's hindering Dipper's ability to figure out who the author is, it's also very easy not to realise that she has a thoroughly reasonable perspective, simply because the narrative puts greater emphasis and attention of Dipper's perspective.

I believe the fandom has overlooked Petra’s character. it’s understandable why Petra gets mixed reactions from the fandom but at the same time some people find it annoying when Petra expressed her feelings of being alone and distant from her friends in S2. Petra is often viewed as someone bold and tough that they forgot she, as a person has insecurities too. It’s human to feel being alone from your friends. It’s human to express how you feel. I would say she’s one of the most misunderstood characters in the fandom. You can hate the character as you want, but the way she’s written serves as a reminder that nobody, even fictional blocky characters are perfect no matter what they seemed.

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Sometimes I think about how there’s a canonical … slang(?) in Infinity Train for <I would italicize this if I knew how>shredding people to death via train wheel

Hey, I do the "grammar, Stanley" to my brother all the time! I was kinda disappointed when he didn't go "IT'S YOU" when we reached that part of the show ngl

Dear Gravity Falls fandom,

Do you really think the scientist who spent years building an interdimentional portal in his basement while also researching tons of anomalies, would wear a TRENCH COAT?? Well, here's my autistic ass's "Errmm, acshoeally, he wears a duster, not a trench coat.". Makes a lot more sense, right? RIGHT???

Sincerely,

A very autistic person who would totally pull a 'Grammar, Stanley' on their sibling lmao

Double Dipper, I too am fine!

okay, okay. Imagine you're watching Gravity Falls for the first time. You watch all the episodes in order EXCEPT one of them is mysteriously left out.

spin this wheel to see which one you skipped

reblogs appreciated!

some misc headcanons

pacifica started working at greasy's because her parents made her. she was spending too much time talking to dipper and mabel and her parents were like "if you're going to fraternize with common rabble, you're going to work like one". they don't really care about collecting the paycheck she earns. they just did this to spite her for having friends and to punish her for it (joke's on them because she meets even more friends at the diner while working there)

after paz leaves home a couple months after turning 18, she goes and lives with susan for a while until she gets an apartment with dipper and mabel in town (theyre either going to a local college or getting their degrees online cause they wanna be in gravity falls as soon as humanly possible)

the Career headcanon i have for the twins + paz is that they start a paranormal pest control & problem resolution service. kind of like the ghostbusters, but not always ghosts and not always busting things. sometimes they just need to use diplomacy. either way, i feel like it's the perfect gig for them. it's a service that is needed in gravity falls, it's something the twins are well-experienced in, and it's something they enjoy immensely, too. win win win. dipper and mabel are primarily the ones doing the field work while pacifica is their bookkeeper/receptionist/general office person, putting her business degree to good use, but sometimes she'll join them on a mission when she's up for adventure

HARPVOR ENJOYERS!! I MADE A THING

I heard the song and immediately knew what I had to do

Leaves on the Stream-Aurelio Voltaire Ft Alissa White-Gruz

some twitter dot com shenanigans, might as well post this here too :D

just misspelled dipper's name as diper and it autocorrected to diaper

something something Grace's t-shirt being too large for her shoulders something something Simon's hoodie being too short for his arms

there's a metaphor about growing up somewhere in there, I think. maybe. idk